Describe the consent procedures
Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval or exempt status must be reported
Do surveys meet the federal definition of research? (Mikhail, 2021).
Do surveys meet the ethical principles in scientific research? (Bhattacherjee, 2012).
Do surveys meet the professional code of ethics? (Bhattacherjee, 2012).
Ethical Principles in Scientific Research
Voluntary participation and harmlessness: participants must be fully aware that their participation in a given study is voluntary and they are free to withdraw from the study at any point in time without being punished as a result of participating or non-participating in a study.
Anonymity and confidentiality: responses must not be specifically identified with a specific participant. Participant's identity must be guaranteed that it is protected and strictly confidential
Disclosure: Risks to human participants must be disclosed if there are deemed to be potential risks or harm to the subjects or participants of the research study.
Analysis and reporting: Researchers must disclose negative findings, including unexpected findings from the analysis of their research study. In other words, the results of the data analysis and the overall research study must be disclosed openly and honestly (Bhattacherjee, 2012).
Institutional Review Boards (IRB): reviews all research proposals involving human participants to make sure that the principles of voluntary participation, safety, anonymity, confidentiality, etc are protected and the negative risks imposed to human participants are minimal as possible (Bhattacherjee, 2012).
Professional Code of Ethics: it consists of formal codes of conduct outlining acceptable and unacceptable professional behavior of research members.
Example: Association of Information Systems (AIS) code of conduct can be found here: http://home.aisnet.org._displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=15).
(Bhattacherjee, 2012).